Phil Mickelson is now 3-for-4 on the PGA Tour Champions after holding off Miguel Angel Jimenez in Jacksonville.
Phil Mickelson is now 3-for-4 on the PGA Tour Champions after holding off Miguel Ángel Jiménez Sunday to claim the Constellation Furyk & Friends at the Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville.
Mickelson, the first reigning major champion to ever play in a Champions event, shot a final-round 68 to finish at 15 under. His scorecard featured three straight birdies to start his day. He had a double bogey on the sixth hole before recording birdies on Nos. 12 and 15.
Leading by one, Mickelson sank a clutch three-footer for par on 17 to keep his one-shot lead. On 18, he hit his drive 301 yards right down the middle. After he hit his approach, fans filled the fairway behind him as he walked to the green.
Jimenez faced a long putt for birdie to tie, but burned the edge and settled for par for a final-round 68 and a solo second-place finish. He now has five consecutive top-10s.
After Steve Flesch made a birdie to secure a solo third-place finish, Lefty then clinched a two-shot win by curling in a birdie putt.
“It was a hard-fought battle and I really enjoyed it. I enjoy playing out here,” Mickelson told Golf Channel after his win. He also had a lot of praise for his friend and tournament host Jim Furyk, who finished tied for fourth at 9 under with Ernie Els and Cameron Beckman.
Harrington: “You win, you’re a hero. You lose, you’re a zero.”
Padraig Harrington won’t be penning a best-selling tell-all book about his Ryder Cup captaincy. That’s the thing with the Ryder Cup – if you win, you’re a legend, but if you lose you’re a goat. Or as Harrington phrased it, “You win, you’re a hero. You lose, you’re a zero. That’s the way it is. You know that going into it, so you have to take responsibility.”
Harrington deserved better than going down as the losing Captain in the most lopsided defeat for the Blue and Gold in the modern era, a 19-9 defeat at Whistling Straits that concluded on Sept. 26. He deserved better than Rory McIlroy not earning a point until Sunday’s singles and needing to sit his first session at a Ryder Cup due to poor form. To hear his players tell it, Harrington did everything to put his 12-man team in the best position to perform; they just didn’t deliver.
“I hope I don’t read the papers and hear a lot of stuff that will upset me,” Ian Poulter said in the aftermath of Europe’s defeat as he waxed rhapsodically about all the good things Harrington had done to create the proper team vibe.
It really is one of sport’s most thankless jobs. Jim Furyk was standing with U.S. Captain Steve Stricker, fellow assistant captain Davis Love and Harrington when word came over their headsets that the U.S. had clinched victory. Harrington turned to Furyk and Love, who both suffered defeats as the captain of the U.S. side (though Love got a second bite at the apple and experienced victory in 2016), and said, “You know how I feel, don’t you?”
Indeed, they do. Furyk didn’t mince words when discussing how being the losing captain in 2018 in France has scarred him.
“It will always eat at me,” he said. “My favorite question is, Would you have done anything different? I laugh. How stupid would I have to be to go, no, I’d do it the same way. Of course, I’d do things differently.”
Enough time has passed for Furyk to reflect on how the loss affected him.
“For the first I’ll say year, year and a half after France, there wasn’t a week or a day that in my mind I wasn’t thinking this is what I would have done, this is what I would have change, how could I have worked it?” he said.
Furyk packed away all that heavy baggage from Paris into the dark recesses of his memory bank, but they all came flooding back at Whistling Straits.
Harrington is just beginning to deal with the disappointment. For now, he’s showing a brave face. He “made sure to get into the swing of it” and enjoyed the after-party at the Ryder Cup on Sunday night.
“There was a family party where we had dueling pianos, which was a very mature party and very nice, people singing and dancing that finished at midnight,” he said. “Then I came back to the player party, which was definitely young people with more mayhem. You could distinctly see the difference between the two age groups.”
Harrington is not one for second-guessing. Unlike Furyk, he said he wouldn’t do anything differently and he’s quick to downplay the trendy belief that the tide has turned in this biennial battle in favor of Team USA.
“The biggest problem we have in Europe is we’ve really innovated over the last 20 years. The U.S. have just copied us. They do everything we do. Until somebody finds the next unknown, at the moment we don’t know what that is, but it’s hard to get an edge,” he said. “The U.S. team was very strong on home ground, but they had everything. They had everything that Europe has done over the years, they’ve learned from it, and Europe should be proud of the fact that, as I said, we pushed the U.S. team to really work hard and explore every avenue to make themself the best team. No longer can they just throw the balls up in the air and go out and play.”
“Can’t second guess our performance,” he added. “Just U.S. did a great job all the way through and they got their stats right, they got everything like that in terms of their picking, you know. Everything they did was spot on what they learned from us.”
But if the U.S. has copied Europe so well and has such a young nucleus of world-beaters to implement it, doesn’t that mean Europe needs to reinvent itself?
“No,” Harrington said. “It needs to accept that there are ebbs and flows. In the three years since the last Cup, the U.S. has come here (holding his right-hand flat and at eye level) and we were on a peak at that stage and we’ve come down. In two years’ time, all it takes is a little bit from us (raising his hand) and a little bit from the U.S. (lowering his hand) and we’re back on level terms. No panicking in Europe; it shouldn’t change a thing. Just keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.”
Harrington is going to keep doing what he’s done and chase that little white ball right on to the PGA Tour Champions.
“I’m interested to see how my game stacks up,” he said.
“Monday morning was like maybe a feel of a major championship.”
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – When Jim Furyk was a young pup on the PGA Tour, he marveled at the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Chi Chi Rodriguez starring on the senior circuit. But he never envisioned that some day he’d be playing on PGA Tour Champions.
“As I got to 35, as I got to 40 and people would say, ‘Are you going to play the Champions Tour?’ Most of my peers would be like, ‘I don’t know, like I don’t know.’ Then as we got to 45, you go, ‘Well, you know, maybe.’ And then we got to like our late 40s, and we’re like, ‘Hey, who are we kidding? What the hell else are we going to do?’ That’s what we know how to do, that’s what we love to do, but there was always that, like at 42, ‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ ” Furyk said.
The 51-year-old has made a seamless transition to 50-and-older golf, winning in his first two starts and vying for both Rookie of the Year and the Charles Schwab Cup, the season-long competition. He hasn’t played a PGA Tour event since May, and noted that he may play a couple of old favorites over the next few years, but “95 percent of his golf will be on the Champions Tour.”
Jim Furyk celebrates with the trophy after winning the final round of the PURE Insurance Championship at the Pebble Beach Golf Links on September 20, 2020 in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
Furyk may have gotten off to a quick start in finding the winner’s circle, but he said it’s no cake walk. These guys are still good, and they still work at their game.
“There’s this idea that we’re all sitting around in the locker room and we’re having a beer and a glass of wine,” Furyk said. “I went to my first event in Flint and the range was packed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I mean packed. Putting green, it was hard to get a spot or a hole to putt at. The chipping green, they’ve got those three little chipping greens at Warwick Hills and it was hard to find a spot to go.”
“We’re blessed, and the guys understand it,” Furyk added. “They understand that it’s a second lease on life and I’m not sure there’s any other sport, maybe bowling, we have some professional bowlers over 50 that can still compete.”
“I’ve kind of fallen in love with the tour,” Furyk said. “I didn’t know if I’d like the three-round events; it’s a little bit of a track meet. You better get out there quick and make some birdies. You have to put the pedal down. I’m getting aggressive, I’m making more birdies. Golf is more fun that way.
“I’ve enjoyed getting in the fire a little bit more and winning a few events and had some heartbreaking losses as well. Every competitor wants to wake up on Sunday with a chance and I’ve had more opportunities on the Champions Tour and really enjoyed them. Guys are just as nervous and you get that throw up on your shoes on 18.”
“Monday morning was like maybe a feel of a major championship where I was just so excited to get things going, but also felt nervous, right?” Furyk said.
For a decade, Furyk & Friends existed as a one-day pro-am ahead of the Players Championship, raising about $500,000 each year for charity. Darius Rucker played at the inaugural tournament party.
“We had a nice niche and we were raising some good money, but we also didn’t have a formula for growth,” Furyk said.
As he neared his 50th birthday, he started seeing friends Davis Love III (RSM Classic) and Steve Stricker (American Family Insurance Open) host tournaments in their local community. When the Korn Ferry Finals moved from Atlantic Beach, Florida to Indiana, Furyk recognized an opportunity to create a tournament that would highlight downtown Jacksonville and the St. Johns River.
With the buy-in from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Furyk landed his long-time sponsor Constellation Energy to underwrite the title and Circle K as a presenting sponsor. (There’s a Slushie machine in the locker room this week.)
“At the time I hadn’t played a Champions Tour event yet. We’re trying to build an event on a tour that I never played an event on,” Furyk said. “It’s been over three years in the making, so it felt like this day or this week would never get here, and then the last few months have kind of flown by.”
Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson on the first hole during the second round of the WGC – Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club. (Photo: Stephen Spillman-USA TODAY Sports)
Turns out Furyk has a lot of friends. The field boasts the likes of Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, winning U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker and losing European captain Padraig Harrington, who is making his senior tour debut. Furyk, who said he didn’t need to twist any arms to get commitments, relayed a funny story of his recruitment of Stricker. Furyk was paired with the tournament host in Wisconsin and Fred Couples in the first round.
“Freddie hopped up on the first tee and said, ‘Man, I love that you two have an event. Strick, happy to be here. Jimmy, I can’t wait to come to your event.’ Then he looked at Strick and went, ‘You’re going, right?’ It was awesome. I couldn’t have said it better. I said to Strick, ‘Hunting season isn’t until Thanksgiving in Wisconsin, I checked.’ He laughed and said he’ll be here.”
Rucker was there on Tuesday night to bring everything full circle as the talent at the pro-am party along with Scotty McCreery, a former American Idol winner, and even John Daly took to the stage to sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
“We used to throw a concert for 400 people for our sponsors, now it’s a venue that holds 5,000 people, it’s amazing,” Furyk said. “I kind of pinch myself.”
Duval thinks the players will go low but “a lot depends on the greens.”
Bob Duval was the long-time Timuquana Country Club head professional and nurtured a future world No. 1-ranked golfer in the process on the classic Donald Ross design.
He also became a PGA Tour Champions winner and finished among the top-30 on the money list three years in a row to qualify for the Senior Tour Championship.
As a result, he’s got a keen interest in this week’s Constellation Furyk & Friends, which will be at Timuquana this week, marking the return of the PGA Tour Champions to the First Coast after a 19-year absence.
Duval last played full-time on the Champions Tour in 2001, with an elbow injury causing an early end to his second career. He had 134 career starts with 23 top-10s, had more than $2.25 in career earnings.
His victory in the 1999 Emerald Coast Classic in Pensacola came on the same day that his son David won the 1999 Players Championship, which still remains the only time a father and son have won on the same day in PGA Tour and Champions Tour events.
And through his son, who learned to play the game at Timuquana and went on to win 13 PGA Tour titles, including the Players and the 2001 Open Championship, Duval is well-acquainted with numerous players who are in the field this week.
His verdict on how they will play the tree-lined course with numerous doglegs and the trademark Ross push-up greens: “I think they’re probably going to tear it up.”
“A lot depends on the greens,” Duval said. “If they’re firm and fast, they might have some problems, especially if they let the Bermuda rough grow a little. But the course is right there in front of you. There are a lot of doglegs but there are no blind shots and these guys are damn good.”
Duval said that while there are no Bryson DeChambeaus on the senior circuit, there are still some big boppers — Phil Mickelson, among them, who will be the first reigning major champion to compete in a Champions Tour event.
“They may be on the Champions Tour but they’re still hitting it 290, 300 yards,” said Duval, They’ve benefited from equipment and the balls just like everyone else.”
Duval said Mickelson should be an obvious contender, but with a caveat.
“If Phil drives it crooked, he will have a rough time,” Duval said.
He also likes the tournament host, Jim Furyk, and Jerry Kelly, for their accuracy off the tee.
“It’s an old-school course and I think the guys are really going to like it,” Duval said. “They always look forward to a course where the short game is important. There are too many modern courses where if you can’t hit it high and right, you can’t play it. It’s going to be fun to watch how they play it.”
Duval had a prediction on the final winning score, unless weather is a factor.
“Twelve or 13-under will be pretty good on Sunday,” he said.
Duval also likes one change they made for tournament week: flipping the sides. That makes the 435-yard par-4 ninth hole, with a large fairway bunker on the left (and out of-bounds beyond that) and trees on the right, a tougher finishing hole than No. 18, which is about 12 yards shorter, with a larger green.
“No. 18 is a flat-out birdie hole now, a driver and a wedge for those guys,” Duval said. “No. 9, you’ve got OB left if you pull it and big trees on the right. That green is a little wobbly, terrain-wise. No. 9 is going to be a great finishing hole.”
The idea of reviving a Ryder Cup-style team event for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, and now it is set to come to fruition.
Rory McIlroy nailed it during the Ryder Cup when he said team golf is the best.
Do we really have to wait two years for the next Ryder and Solheim cups? Well, the Presidents Cup is less than a year away, but so is a new creation for the golf calendar: the World Champions Cup, which pits three teams of senior-aged golfers. How about these three captains: Jim Furyk for Team USA, Darren Clarke for Europe and Ernie Els for the International squad. Not too shabby at all. All three have been captains within the past five years in international competition and continue to thrive as winners this season on PGA Tour Champions.
“It’s a continuation of long rivalries,” said Peter Jacobsen, who is serving as chairman of the inaugural competition, which is scheduled for November 2022. “These guys are beyond interested in rekindling those competitive flames. For them to be able to do it as seniors is going to be very special.”
Darren Clarke will captain the European Team in the World Champions Cup. (Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post)
As the saying goes, there are no new ideas, and a Ryder Cup style competition for the 50-and-over set previously existed a couple of decades ago. From 2001-04, Arnold Palmer captained a U.S. side in the UBS Cup against Gary Player and once Tony Jacklin. The idea of reviving something like it for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, Jacobsen said. Intersport, which founded and operates the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, is working on signing a title sponsor and securing a course for a November 2022 date. Originally the plan was to launch the tournament this fall, but COVID had other plans and pushed it back a year.
The format of the three-day competition will be twice daily nine-hole matches featuring both team and single play with points awarded for each hole won in each match. At the conclusion of the matches, the team with the highest point total wins.
“I guess you can call the scoring member-guest-ish,” Jacobsen said.
For the first time, the competitors of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup will go head-to-head in the same competition, while older rivalries will be renewed.
“The World Champions Cup will give golf fans the opportunity to see the game’s greatest players come together in a team format on the world’s biggest stage,” said PGA Tour Champions president Miller Brady in a press release announcing the competition. “International team events are some of the most significant competitions in our game, and it will be fun to see Ernie, Jim and Darren, along with their teammates, compete for the inaugural World Champions Cup next year.”
A field like this would have led to champagne corks popping in the offices of The Players Championship — 20 years ago.
A field like this would have led to champagne corks popping in the offices of The Players Championship — 20 years ago.
In the present day, it’s as good as it gets for the PGA Tour Champions.
The field for the upcoming Constellation Furyk & Friends was finalized late Friday afternoon and the final roll call at the Timuquana Country Club when the first round begins on Oct. 8 will be nine members of the World Golf Hall of Fame and 21 major champions who have combined to win 38 of golf’s grand-slam events.
Leading the way will be current PGA champion and five-time major winner Phil Mickelson, four-time major champion Ernie Els, three-time major champion Vijay Singh of Ponte Vedra Beach, two-time Masters champion and current Charles Schwab Cup points leader Bernard Langer, tournament host and 2003 U.S. Open champion Jim Furyk of Jacksonville and two-time Players champion and 1997 PGA winner Davis Love III of St. Simons Island, Ga.
Six past Players champions are in the field, Mickelson, Love, Fred Couples, Lee Janzen, Fred Funk and K.J. Choi.
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The list also includes both Ryder Cup captains whose teams battled last week at Whistling Straits, Steve Stricker for the U.S. and Padraig Harrington for Europe. Harrington, a three-time major champion who turned 50 years old on Aug. 31, is making his PGA Tour Champions debut.
Vijay Singh of Ponte Vedra Beach is one of nine members of the World Golf Hall of Fame and 18 major champions playing in the Constellation Furyk & Friends tournament Oct. 8-10 at the Timuquana Country Club.
The field of 81 includes more than 50 past PGA Tour winners who have combined for more than 400.
Players also will be jockeying for position in the 54-hole, no-cut tournament, with two events left to qualify for the final-72 on the Schwab Cup points list and make the three-tournament playoff series. Only five of the current top-72 are not playing.
Tickets and parking information are available by visiting constellationfurykandfriends.com.
Furyk & Friends field
Players who have committed to the Constellation Furyk & Friends PGA Tour Champions event Oct. 8-10 at the Timuquana Country Club (World Golf Hall of Fame members in bold):
Steven Alker, Michael Allen, Robert Allenby, Billy Andrade, Stuart Appleby, Woody Austin, Doug Barron, Cameron Beckman, Rich Beem, Shane Bertsch, Paul Broadhurst, Tom Byrum, Mark Calcavecchia, K.J. Choi, Darren Clarke, Fred Couples, John Daly, Marco Dawson, Glen Day, Chris DiMarco, Ken Duke, Scott Dunlap, Joe Durant, Ernie Els, Bob Estes, Steve Flesch, David Frost, Fred Funk, Jim Furyk, Tom Gillis, Matt Gogel, Retief Goosen, Jay Haas, Padraig Harrington, Tim Herron, Scott Hoch, Lee Janzen, Miguel Angel Jiménez, Brandt Jobe, Kent Jones, Robert Karlsson, Jerry Kelly, Bernhard Langer, Stephen Leaney, Tom Lehman, Frank Lickliter II, Davis Love III, Jeff Maggert, Billy Mayfair, David McKenzie, Rocco Mediate, Phil Mickelson, Larry Mize, Colin Montgomerie, Jose Maria Olazábal, Rod Pampling, Scott Parel, Jesper Parnevik, Corey Pavin, Tom Pernice Jr., Tim Petrovic, Dicky Pride, Brett Quigley, Loren Roberts, Gene Sauers, John Senden, Wes Short, Jr., Vijay Singh, Jeff Sluman, Paul Stankowski, Steve Stricker, Kevin Sutherland, Ken Tanigawa, David Toms, Kirk Triplett, Duffy Waldorf, Mike Weir.
Tournament information
Dates: Oct. 8-10. Course: Timuquana Country Club, Jacksonville. Tickets/parking: Visit constellationfurykandfriends.com. TV: Golf Channel (Oct. 8-10, 3-5 p.m.). Purse: $2 million ($300,000 to the winner).
There, among fairways lined with trees dripping with Spanish Moss, on the banks of the St. Johns River, 17-time PGA Tour winner Jim Furyk and his wife, Tabitha, are hosting the first PGA Tour Champions event in the area since 2002, the final year of the Legends of Golf at the World Golf Hall of Fame King & Bear.
It’s a new generation of Champions Tour stars who have come out to test their skills on the meandering fairways and tricky push-up greens of Timuquana.
The field is led by reigning PGA champion Phil Mickelson, who became the oldest player in history to win a major championship in May at Kiawah Island, S.C., plus other major champions such as Schwab Cup points leader Bernhard Langer, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III, Furyk, Fred Couples, John Daly, Ernie Els, Mark O’Meara and Jose Maria Olazabal — plus Ryder Cup captains Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington.
Times-Union file
If all of the players who have committed or indicated they will have committed by the Oct. 1 deadline show up at Timuquana, the field will have 58 past PGA Tour winners who have combined for 438 titles; 20 players combining for 38 major championships; 56 past PGA Tour Champions winners combining for 261 titles; and 23 PGA Tour Champion major winners who have combined to win 50 majors.
The tournament has the backing of Constellation Energy for five years — which means a commitment of $2.6 million to charity — and the presenting sponsor is Circle K.
Other corporate support will be seen in the number of restaurants that set up shop at the course (such as M Shack and Taco Lu), participants in three pro-ams (Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of tournament week) and the purchase of hospitality packages.
Also coming will be musical stars Darius Rucker and Scott McCreery, who will perform at a concert on Oct. 5 at Daily’s Place.
The Furyk factor
Why the strong support from both players, the entertainers and the First Coast business community, in the tournament’s first year, in the middle of football season?
PGA Tour Champions President Brady Miller has an easy answer.
“It’s Jim and Tabitha,” he said of one of the First Coast’s leading power couples in golf. “They have supported charities; Tabitha is on numerous boards and everyone wanted to be a part of because of them. The question was, what level?”
Tournament director Adam Renfroe said there was some uncertainty about how the tournament would be received. The dates were announced several days before the Tour was forced to cancel The Players and officials have been monitoring the impact of the COVID surge this summer.
Renfroe called the overall response by the business community and fans a “pleasant surprise.”
“It speaks to the relationship Jim and Tabitha have in Jacksonville and their charity work,” Renfroe said. “I think there’s confidence in the corporate community that their money and their sponsorships are going to be put to good use. We’re really proud of Jacksonville and the response we’ve gotten.”
The race to Schwab playoffs
The competition will be important to the players since the Furyk & Friends is the next-to-last tournament to insure a top-72 finish on the Schwab Cup points list and qualify for the three-tournament Schwab Cup series.
It’s been a two-year process, because of the pandemic, with 2020 and 2021 folded into one race.
Langer’s runnerup finish to K.J. Choi last week at Pebble Beach gave him a lead of more than $164,000 over Furyk, with Jerry Kelly, Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez rounding out the top-five.
Langer is seeking his sixth Schwab Cup title.
Dylan Buell/Getty Images
And what golf purist from the First Coast won’t want to see how the field attacks Timuquana?
“It will be set up firm and fast and the greens allow for defense,” Furyk said. “Depending on the weather, single-digits [under par] could win. If you drive the ball well you will have a short iron in your hand a reasonable number of times. The par-5s are reachable. But with the pushup greens and some putts that can break a little funny, you can make bogeys as well.”
When Furyk first approach Miller about holding a PGA Tour Champions event, he said they both had the same idea: play at Timuquana.
“It’s a hidden gem,” Miller said. “I don’t think it’s going to favor a certain style and I think the guys are going to love having to hit different shots into and around the greens.”
Come for the golf, stay for the party
But just as much as it will be a golf tournament, Tabitha Furyk wants it to be a community celebration. The 2020 Players Championship was canceled because of the onset of the pandemic. The 2021 Players was held with limited spectators.
Furyk & Friends could be a way for golf fans to unwind in a comfortable setting.
“We want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to feel like they own part of this tournament,” she said. “It’s super-important to us that this just isn’t about golf, but also about the great food the Jacksonville restaurants have to offer and the music. It’s a party in our community and we want everyone to come.”
There will still be safety measures in place. All hospitality venues are open-air, hand sanitizers will be plentiful and social distancing is being encouraged. Masks are required for those with clubhouse access.
But autographs will be allowed and Miller said that close to 90 percent of the PGA Tour Champions members are vaccinated.
Furyk said another reason he’s enthused about the tournament: almost every player in the field competed in The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra for years but most of them have never seen Timuquana, downtown Jacksonville or the Ortega area.
“They’ve really only seen the airport, the beach and the TPC Sawgrass,” Furyk said. “Now they’re going to get a chance to see our downtown area and the beautiful areas on the river we have.”
PGA Tour Champions on the First Coast
Senior Players Championship
1987: Gary Player shot 8-under 208 at the Sawgrass Country Club to beat Chi Chi Rodriguez and Bruce Crampton by one shot at the Sawgrass Country Club.
1988: Billy Casper’s 10-under 278 at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley Course beat Al Geiberger by two shots.
1989: Orville Moody lit up the Valley Course for a 17-under 271, the lowest 72-hole individual score in a Champions Tour event on the First Coast. He beat Charles Coody by two shots.
Legends of Golf
1998: The tournament was played at the Golf Club of Amelia for one year when the World Golf Hall of Fame Slammer & Squire Course wasn’t ready. Charles Coody and Dale Douglass won the team competition for the third time in sudden death against Hugh Baiocchi and David Graham after both teams finished 24-under 192.
1999: Hubert Green and Gil Morgan shot 22-under 194 at the Slammer & Squire to beat John Mahaffy and Tom Wargo by three shots.
2000: Jim Colbert and Andy North won at 25-under 191 at the Slammer & Squire, outlasting Bruce Fleisher and David Graham by one shot.
2001: The same two teams remained at the top after a rain-shortened 36-hole event, which was moved to the King & Bear. Colbert and North shot 20-under 124 and nipped Fleisher and Graham by one shot.
2002: The tournament format changed to individual stroke play for the Senior Division, with earnings counting for the first time. Doug Tewell edged Bobby Wadkins by one shot at 11-under 205 at the King & Bear. It was late announced that the tournament was moving to Savannah.
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak chatted with U.S. Ryder Cup vice captain Jim Furyk about the team’s recent victory at Whistling Straits.
“It was hard to figure out how we were going to sit four guys,” Furyk said. “It was just a super-talented team and we had a bunch of guys playing well. Not one vice captain ever walked in that room and said, you know what, I think we need to rest this guy because he’s struggling.
“Those are champagne problems, right? When you have those problems, it makes for a great team.”
Jim Furyk is not back to defend as he is serving as a vice captain at the Ryder Cup.
A year ago, Jim Furyk joined Arnold Palmer and Bruce Fleisher as the only players to win their first two PGA Tour Champions starts. Phil Mickelson would later become the fourth member of that club.
But Furyk is not at Pebble Beach Golf Links this week to defend his title at the PGA Tour Champions Pure Insurance Championship. Lefty’s not there either. Instead, they’re both serving as vice captains for U.S. boss Steve Stricker at the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.
In Friday’s opening round, Stuart Appleby and Alex Cejka posted matching 66s to share the lead. Appleby had seven birdies and a bogey at Pebble Beach Golf Links while Cejka had a bogey-free round with six birdies. Cejka won the first two majors in 2021 on the senior circuit; Appleby is seeking his first Champions victory and his first win anywhere since the 2010 Greenbrier Classic on the PGA Tour.
Tom Lehman, who has 12 PGA Tour Champions wins and five more on the PGA Tour, shot a 67 at Pebble Beach. He is tied for third with K.J. Choi.
Glen Day, Esteban Toledo, Larry Mize and Kirk Triplett all shot 68s and are tied for fifth.
The Pure Insurance is being played on two golf courses: Pebble Beach Golf Resort and Spyglass Hill Golf Course. The tournament features participants from First Tee chapters around the country and they are paired with a Champions tour players for the week.
Jim Furyk is at the Minnehaha Country Club, host of the fourth edition of the Sanford International.
The game is fun again, Jim Furyk admits.
Sure, there’s the camaraderie of playing against former buddies with who he used grind it out on the PGA Tour, but one of the reasons the 2003 U.S. Open champ has quickly taken to the PGA Tour Champions is the simple fact that he’s again become friendly with his short irons.
It’s a rekindling he hopes to continue this week as Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, hosts the fourth edition of the Sanford International. The event runs through Sunday and a field of 76 players from the 50-and-over tour will compete for a $1.8 million purse, with a winner’s share of $270,000.
“It’s one of the reasons why I really enjoy the Champions tour. Not the only reason, but I joke that I got to know my 4- and 5-iron really well playing the PGA Tour and kind of missed hitting the 8, 9 and wedge into par 4s,” Furyk said on Wednesday. “I get an opportunity now to attack a little bit more at times and get some shorter irons in my hand and make a few more birdies. It’s a lot of fun.”
But while Furyk was mandated by PGA Tour rules to play the world’s best courses at their very longest, he said it’s a mistake that common players make when enjoying the game in middle age.
“As amateurs get older, it’s very common that if they grew up playing the blue tees, they want to play the blue tees. It’s hard to move up to the whites,” Furyk said. “When they finally do, they go, ‘Wow, this is fun, why didn’t I do this earlier? I should have been doing this five years ago.
Jim Furyk plays his shot from the first tee during the final round of the U.S. Senior Open Championship at the Omaha Country Club on July 11, 2021, in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo: Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
“That’s kind of what coming out to the Champions tour, I’m back to kind of playing like I was maybe in my mid-30s on the PGA Tour and hitting a lot of those same clubs in.”
Of course, the game is more fun when you’re succeeding, and Furyk’s been doing plenty of that in recent months since moving to a more consistent Champions schedule. He’s posted top-10 finishes in seven of his last nine events, including a T-6 at last week’s Ascension Charity Classic in St. Louis and a victory at the U.S. Senior Open in July at Omaha Country Club.
“They are good golf we’re playing. It’s still challenging, but you can see by the scores that we shoot and the way the golf courses are set up. … last week I want to say 10 under won. That was a pretty high score for a winning score out here on the Champions Tour, so a good, hard test of golf,” he said. “Depending on the conditions and the wind this week and the severity of the greens, I can see the same thing if conditions are right.”
